Monday, May 13, 2013

Zak and I have been working on Dave Ramsey's Baby Step Three (create a 3-6 month emergency fund in liquid assets) for a couple of months now and each time we almost reach our goal, something seems to go wrong that sets us back another month. In April it was a car repair to the tune of $800. Already May has required new tires ($500) so I was hoping that Murphy and his Law would leave us alone for awhile . But to our dismay, last week we started hearing a clunking sound in the car every time we made a sharp turn.

We feared the worst, especially after Zak Googled "weird clunking noise." Google always seems to give the worst case scenario. After deciding to take it to the shop, Zak tinkered around underneath for awhile trying to figure out how to explain the sound to the mechanic and checking to see if he could spot something amiss. He kept throwing out possibilities, all of them sounding expensive.

After fixing another minor issue, he decided to drive the car around the block to listen to the clunking and maybe isolate the broken area. As he was pulling out of the garage, Storey was standing in the doorway and suddenly started yelling something about a potato stuck in the car. She was pointing to the front grill and shouting that she wanted to get the potato out. Zak parked and we went to investigate. A very large rock that had somehow lodged itself in a small space between the engine and the bumper. And it looked very much like a big baked potato. I sat in the driver's seat while Zak rolled the rock back and forth a few times and we quickly realized that the potato rock was the culprit. Thankfully a very cheap fix. Storey to the rescue.

We thanked her several times for being so observant, but since praise is her currency, she constantly reminded us all evening about the rock and how she saved the day so we could tell her over and over how amazing she was. She even got an extra sticker on her goal chart (10 stickers = $1 to spend at the dollar store. Children are so easily pleased). And now we can go back to our goal of the emergency fund without another interruption.